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Some catching up...
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Jul. 25th, 2008 @ 05:55 am
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Hmmmm. How to describe this week? It's been off and on, up and down.
Saturday: Wrote a little, did chores, goofed off (playing CoV - Double XP) instead of writing more.
Sunday: Wrote more and was very happy. Was a little disappointed by the word count by the time I was done, but oh well. Went to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) chromiuml's for miniature painting party and had fun. Almost finished a miniature! A concern with Ellis was brought up and discussed.
Monday: Christine didn't have to work. We did chores around the house, but all of us were a little off. By the time we had done lunch and gone clothes shopping with a teenager, we were all grumpy and out of sorts. So we came home and napped instead of going to the movies. I downloaded Microsoft Visual Basic.
Tuesday: Lunch with raffenshiv. The Moroccan place we planned to go to wasn't open for lunch, so we went downtown to a really good Indian place. Chicken Tiki Masala - to die for. Tried to go to a movie, but Becca was having none of it. Wound up going back to his place and while Becca made a 4th Ed. D&D character, I watched (and I kid you not) the pilot episode of The Rockford Files. Hilarious. We left late and didn't get any chores done. Becca and I had a bit of a fight on the drive home and I was depressed the rest of the night. I installed and messed around with Visual Basic.
Wednesday: I slept well and late. I got a tone of chores done including about 2 hours of running around town doing pre-cruise errands - tux to the cleaner, get new watch band, scrape together poker cash, buy groceries, etc. After that I went and finally saw my movie, The Dark Knight. Excellent movie, deserving of its own post. Best movie since Pan's Labyrinth.
Thursday: Work went well. The game went even better. We had a brief discussion of the issue that had come up at the painting party, experience. While not totally resolved, some suggestions were made in both directions and good progress was made. The plot was advanced, and new character, Claudio the Chandler, was fully introduced and I got one of the characters to turn themselves into the authorities for a crime they didn't commit.Current Mood:  cheerful |
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Back from Ashland
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Jul. 17th, 2008 @ 06:47 am
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The drive back from Ashland was a grueling 11 hour trip, with traffic in Portland and Tacoma, but thankfully not in Seattle. And that 11 hours did include 2 stops: one at the Cascade Raptor Center and one at Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland. Yes, there will be Bacon Maple Bars at the game tonight!
The last play, The Comedy of Errors, was enjoyed by everyone in out party . . . except me. It was set in the American Wild West, while didn't thrill me, but re-staging like that doesn't automatically turn me off. Sometimes that works.
What bothered the heck out of me though was that this play had been re-written. About 80% of the play by my estimate had been re-written into modern English and tweaks had been made to make it fit the Wild West. But several of the key exchanges were kept in the original Elizabethan English, which meant that you couldn't understand them at all because it takes (at least for me and a few others I've talked to about this) some time for your brain to get used to unravelling the unusual language.
The worst part, however, was that it had also been turned into a musical. Do I need to say more? Let's just say that I don't care for musicals.
The "thing" we bought on Monday in Ashland has now been revealed and is called Sven. Sven is a five-foot tall Playmobil display piece, the sort you would put in your store window. He is not pristine, and has some tears in his plastic, but we will take good care of him. sabledrake describes her surprise in her LJ.
Here are some pictures of Sven:
The drive back was uneventful. Sven filled up the car and I was afraid we were going to have to abandon our cooler full of soda to get him to fit, but we jostled and folded down seats and got them both in there.
We wound up stopping at the same Sizzler for lunch on the drive back that we had stopped at going down. Hopefully sims2freak will post about the Raptor Center is her LJ.
Downtown historic Portland was really nice: Old buildings, cosmopolitan flair, a little seedy but not over so (the theatre next door to the doughnut shop advertised that it played Hentai after midnight, lol). And Google Maps got us there through a maze of one-way streets and trolly-only streets perfectly, which impressed me.
I do have to say that Becca was great the whole trip. She managed to maintain her surly gothiness while not answering in monosylables and making her grandparents feel like she'd rather be anywhere else. She was never super negative (except during the great Wrap expedition, but I think everyone was getting negative at that point) and managed to keep up her spirits when she was bored. Buying her some books definitely helped, even if she did get lost in them a few times. She was great fun to be with, and I really enjoyed spending time with her.
Everyone should expect lots of Flair in the Facebooks from her!Current Mood: rejuvenated |
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Badgers, why does the gnome have a badger?
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Jul. 15th, 2008 @ 11:27 am
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Quoted from: http://peromniasaecula.blogspot.com/2008/03/wmam-et-al.html
"Isidore [of Seville, a medieval bestiarian] has this to say on the badger:
The badger (melo, ie meles) is so named either because it has a very rounded member (cf. malum, "round fruit"). . ."
Now I wonder about our gnome friend here . . . |
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Monday in Medford
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Jul. 15th, 2008 @ 08:24 am
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Monday morning I worked on Ellis and got about 1000 words written on the bestiary. I'm very happy with that. I played a little CoV while Becca was still sleeping.
We got together with everyone and went into Medford. First stop was Sonic to get Becca some REAL food (ie. chicken strips). Then we went to Harry & David's and wandered around for a surprisingly short time. This is another traditional stop, and it usually takes a very long time. I got a bottle of Chaucer (the name of the winery) Mead, complete with mulling spices in tea bags.
Then we went to a used book store in the same mini-mall. Becca got the third Maximum Ride book and wound up reading it all day. She finished the 405 page book around 9:00 pm that night.
The next stop was to find the only game store in town. It took a little driving around because of VERY poor street signs before we found the store, about 2 blocks from Harry & David's.
Now I've been to a lot of game stores over the years. Whenever I travel, I try to find one. I go for a few different reasons: Hope of finding some long forgotten gem, professional curiousity, to get ideas about what other stores are doing, etc.
This has to be the worst game store I have ever been in. The place was a complete, disorganized mess, but in enough order that it seemed to be the normal state of affairs. After talking to the employee, we learned that they had just the day before moved from the space next door into this larger storefront. So maybe they have an excuse for being a little messy. If that is, the employee hadn't been listening to his long heavy metal and painting miniatures, but had been cleaning or reorganizing. The selection was awful: a few German games, but not many. Not even a consistent pattern as to which they were stocking (like new releases, or family-style, or hard-core). They had three large miniatures tables and some minis, but again, no consistancy. Some Confrontation, some Flames of War, some War Machine, a lot of 40K -- all jumbled together in a weird mess or pegwall, standard metal shelving and cardboard displays. Their RPG section was practically non-existent, and yet they had some of the oddest things in it: The Great Pendragon Campaign, Hackmaster, an odd Paranoia supplement. The rest was all d20 and they had a few 4th ed books (no PH). Oh, and I almost forgot -- no Munchkin!
From there we went to a mall and wandered around. Becca talked me into buying her a pair of Converse sneakers (no tax, wooo!). We talked to a guy at Software Etc. about our Xbox problem and he gave us good advice (since he claimed to have sent back 4 Xboxes due to red ring errors). We had some good time there away from everyone else.
After the mall we came back to hotel and hung out a while, then went out for dinner to a Thai place. Becca didn't care much for it, but the rest of loved it. I had a delicious (and hot!) chicken red curry.
After dinner we all hung around the hotel room and Becca finished her book. Then she turned on the TV and we caught G4's coverage of E3. Wow! Talk about big news. Gears of War 2, Fable II (Becca is already drooling and clammoring to get our fixed), and Final Fantasy XIII. I found a lot of the marketing statements very interesting ($1,000,000,000 in Live Marketplace sales in 2.5 years).
Today we have the Comedy of Errors at 8:30 pm and then the long drive home tomorrow morning. I think we're going to stop at The Cascades Raptor Center along the way.Current Mood: happy |
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Sunday in Ashland
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Jul. 14th, 2008 @ 07:50 am
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Yesterday was a quiet day. We all woke up late (for me that meant 7:30 am) and wound up together and in town about Noon. We got coffee and started wandering the shops, but Becca and I soon got hungry. Now she had been forced to eat Italian food the last two nights in a row, so I thought she deserved, if not to pick a restaurant, at least get one that had something she wanted on the menu (instead of having to pick the least objectionable item, as she had done).
Sounds good and not too bad, right? And she wasn't being overly picky, she just wanted chicken strips. Every place should have chicken strips, either as an appetizer or kid's meal or something, right? Not in downtown Ashland.
We walked about 8 blocks in the 90 degree heat looking for a place that had chicken strips. Our first try was an upscale microbrewery/restaurant. It had nothing but traditional pub food, but fancified up so that i didn't even want anything on the menu (things like bison burger with feta and sun-dried tomatoes). Then a cafe that had nothing but wraps. More wraps. An ice cream parlor with a lunch menu - wraps. An Italian restaurant. In Irish pub! -- that was closed on Sunday. Another all organic wrap shop. Another Italian restaurant.
Finally we turned around and found a good place. Very good food. Terrible service. Then they tried to include the service (even though we were a party of 5 and the menu said they only did that with parties of 6 or more). Dad objected, rightfully so, and we found out that our server had left for the day right after bringing our food. No bad feelings at all about not tipping him and a very nice server got that removed from the bill.
We wandered shops a bit more and I got a travel coffee mug and Becca bought two books -- How to Survive a Horror Movie and How to be a Villain. She read those while we looked in one horrible, ugly women's clothing store after another with my mother.
Then we came to a store. They were having a sidewalk sale. An inventory reduction/let's clean out the back room sort of sale. I instantly saw something I had to have, but wasn't immediately sure if it was for sale. It was . . . and then I had to think and see if I could justify buying it. I did and it is fabulous. sabledrake will absolutely love it. Pictures will be forthcoming, but not until we get home. What it is will have to wait until it can be seen in person. It is that cool and unique.
At lunch, we had a long conversation about LOLcats. Mom, Dad and Kathy had never heard of them, so I spent a long time trying to explain them with words. So when we got back to the hotel, we took Kathy to I Can Has Cheezburger. She is now hooked.
We sat around and chatted and each of us had our laptops. Dad and Kathy went to a play that no one else wanted to see. We kept computing and I wound up working on the Ellis Bestiary and surfing through the Wikipedia for ideas. I came across this story which I love and would love to see a movie version of.
We said goodnight about 10 and made it back to our room just in time to catch Becca's favorite TV show, Code Monkeys.
I've been up for about 90 minutes and have been using my new travel mug at the hotel's continental breakfast and Becca is still asleep. I've written more bestiary stuff and am feeling pretty good.
My iPod is acting up though. It just started pausing the music for no reason, roughly every 2 minutes. That is going to get annoying very quick. I hope I can fix it.
--TimCurrent Mood: chipper |
| » Othello |
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We just got back from seeing Othello. It was an excellent performance and even Becca seemed to enjoy it . . . especially the bloody bits.
This set of lines:
CASSIO
266 reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost
267 my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of
268 myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation,
269 Iago, my reputation!
IAGO
270 As I am an honest man, I thought you had received
271 some bodily wound; there is more sense in that than
272 in reputation. reputation is an idle and most false
273 imposition: oft got without merit, and lost without
274 deserving: you have lost no reputation at all,
275 unless you repute yourself such a loser...
really stood out in my mind, especially having been reading and listening to a lot of Viking sagas and the Illiad. I want to say that Iago is speaking for the shifting tide. That the warrior ethos of the middle ages and before is, at this point (1602), on the decline. That and that the play takes a highly successful warrior and turns him into a lover, but at loving he fails.
Just a few late night thoughts at the theater. I'm off to bed.
--Tim
Jul. 13th, 2008 @ 12:24 am
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| » I never doubted you, my love |
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Becca and I are now in Ashland, OR home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
It was a long drive. We did the 480 miles in exactly 9 hours (9:30 am to 6:30 pm), with slowdowns for traffic in Portland, lots of construction on I-5 in Oregon and lunch in Albany (at one of my faves, Sizzler).
I tried a new sunscreen (SPF 50) that didn't feel all greasy on my arm and came out of an aresol bottle that you didn't have to rub in. It worked and my driving arm is not horribly sunburnt. I also brought a hat to keep the top of my head from burning . . .
We met my parents at the hotel and I tried to videotape their reaction to Becca's new hair. It didn't phase them though, so there wasn't much to record. We sat around and talked, got dinner and went into Medford to pick up my sister from the airport.
She told us all about her day: 6 am flight from Ontario, CA to Salt Lake City, seven hours of meetings and reviewing records, then a flight from SLC to Medford. Who would have thought that there would be a direct flight from SLC to Medford, OR?
She also told us about one of her current projects, something called the Kinetic Energy Interceptor. I asked how secret it was, and she said that parts of it were, but the project itself wasn't. So I joked, "Oh, so it will have its own Wikipedia page, right?" She laughed and said that she didn't think it would, but you might be able to find some info about their static tests.
Well, Kathy, I hate to correct you (actually, no I don't, I'm a jerk to my sister that way), but here is the Kinetic Energy Interceptor. Oh, Wikipedia, I never doubted you.
I wound up forgetting my toothbrush, but just went down to the front desk and got a very cheap complimentary one. Tonight we see Othello
Jul. 12th, 2008 @ 06:20 am
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| » Well crap |
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The problems with the printer on Squirrelman #2 have bit us in the ass. The books will be arriving about 5 hours too late to be at Ad Astra (a con in Toronto).
That really sucks and I really feel like I let Rob down. Sorry Rob.
Jul. 10th, 2008 @ 07:03 am
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| » Road Trip! |
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It's been a horribly busy week, mostly because I've been really pushing myself on Ellis. I managed to write 5300 words this week (I had set myself the goal of 5-6 thousand). I'm still pushing hard fro my July 31st deadline, and am not sure I'm going to make it. We'll see.
A lot of it depends on how much work I can get done while on a weeks vacation. Yes, starting tomorrow, Becca and I will road trip down to Ashland, OR to meet my parents and my sister for nearly a week of Shakespeare at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We have tickets to see Othello on Saturday and The Comedy of Errors on Tuesday.
As odd as it might seem, traveling and vacations really stir the creative juices in me and get me writing. Part of it is the lack of familiar and comfortable distractions, but I give most of the credit to the change of environment and the energy that builds in me when I'm out exploring. Plus, since this is my parents, they won't even be awake until 11 am, so I'll need something to do from 6 - 11.
Becca is not so pleased by the Shakespeare and being stuck in a town that only seems to be filled with touristy shops and used books stores, but that's heaven for me. The Panic! concert was part bribe, part apology for being drug around town for 5 days. She did have some fun last year when we did this, so I hope it won't be too bad for her.
I will have computer access while I'm gone and can be reached here or at my new gmail address, which is tafeanorn AT gmail DOT com.
Also while I'm gone I want to do a big write-up about how the Palazzo game is going, so look for that. I'm not entirely sure what's going on at tonight's session, but I have notes and some ideas.
--Tim
Jul. 10th, 2008 @ 06:40 am
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| » Badger FTW |
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Quinn sent me this link via Facebook. I had to share:
--Tim
Jul. 7th, 2008 @ 05:27 pm
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| » Too pissed off for words.... |
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OK, maybe not since I'm here writing words, but the sentiment is there.
"Days of Wonder announced today that effective immediately, it has awarded Alliance Game Distributors and Diamond Comic Distributors exclusive rights to distribute its products to the hobby channel in the Americas and Asia. Days of Wonder will continue to distribute products in Europe through its current distribution partners there."
The full article can be found here: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/12829.html
Some other day I'll write about the full implications of this trend, but anyone who has followed the comic book industry for the last 10 or 15 years knows that this is just the next step to the ruinization of the gaming industry.
Jul. 2nd, 2008 @ 06:09 am
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| » Best PvP evah |
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http://www.pvponline.com/2008/06/30/interlude-the-adventures-of-lolbat/
It makes me laugh, especially after reading the Squirrelman books.
Speaking of Squirrelman, the problem with the printer should be fixed and we should be getting the proof of SQ2 by FedEx today. Which means if it looks good (I am a little worried about the color matching on the cover) we can put in the order today, which _should_ get them to Rob by July 10th for his con. ::fingers crossed::
Jun. 30th, 2008 @ 08:05 am
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| » School's out for summer |
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School has been out all week and Becca and I are settling in and getting used to having each other around. She's getting good at complaining about having to do parent-assigned homework over the summer, but still doing it with a minimum of fuss. We've done quite a few things together already, including going sailing on Lake Union with frog_mb, going out to lunch with raffenshiv, going to work together and she getting to play in my playtest session of Ellis.
She will post about these events over the weekend.
The sailing was wonderful and fun, even if the wind was a little light. The game went well, I thought, and at least partially made up for my poor showing last week.
Next week she has lots planned too: Game night on Saturday, birthday party on Sunday, going out with chubling and garurumom on Monday for hair styling and maybe dyeing. Her father is a little nervous about that last one...
Work has progressed well on my game this week (although I did fail to meet some goals I set for myself). I wrote nearly 3400 words over the week, but didn't get my 5 saints a day done like I had hoped. Oh well. I still made progress.
I also found a neat historical document. I have long be fascinated by the Statute of Laborers of 1351 in which Edward III of England tried to artificially set the wages of workers in response to increased demand for work after the Black Death. This week I discovered a similar document called the Edict on Maximum Prices. This law, made in 301 by the Emperor Diocletian, tried to set maximum prices on common goods during a period of rampant inflation caused by the debasing of the Roman monetary system. Because of the inflation, the prices themselves are horribly skewed, but the ratios and relative pricing should be meaningful.
( The excerpt of the text is behind the cut )</lj></lj></lj></lj>
Jun. 27th, 2008 @ 06:30 am
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| » Bad Tim, no biscuit |
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The game last night was a flop. We had a few no shows (they warned me in advance, no complaints there), but my heart wasn't in it. Conversations kept sidetracking into RL, both because I wasn't taking a firm "let's stay on task" kind of attitude and because people were truly interested in what was going on in each others' lives. Or, if other people weren't, I was.
Still, I felt (and still do feel) bad for letting folks down. I think too that I led the game down a boring path. So next week I will make it up to people. We'll get into some action and have some excitement for everyone!
After work we went out dinner to celebrate Megann's birthday. We had a really good time, though I didn't care much for the restaurant. Very loud. The food was good, but overpriced and too ... pretentious isn't quite the right word. Trying too hard to be expensive? Maybe pretentious is the right word. But not in a modern, trendy sort of way. More of a "let's use bizarre ingredients and Italian phrases so that no one knows what they're actually getting."
We had a great time though. Although we stayed much too late. And then I-5 was closed down to one lane for construction in Everett. It took us over an hour to get home. I got to bed by 12:30 and got woken up by the cat at 5:30. It's going to be a long day ...
Played around with the Spore Creature Creator a bit this morning. Very neat. Very pretty. Very ... useless without the game. The demo has disabled over 75% of the building bits, but there is still an amazing amount of flexibility. The interface is 100% intuitive (once you figure out that you can't add feet until after you have legs).
The plan for tomorrow is to visit a cheese shop in Edmonds that we read about in the newspaper over the week: http://www.residentcheesemonger.com/catalog/index.php
And sleep. There will be much sleep.
--Tim
Jun. 20th, 2008 @ 06:52 am
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| » Miniatures.... |
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raffenshiv pointed me to the German website of my favorite miniature sculptor, Werner Klocke: http://www.freebooterminiatures.com/
There are at least five that I must have, and I will post them here.
At 10 Euros a piece, plus shipping, I'm going to have to save up some spending money for those.
--Tim
Jun. 18th, 2008 @ 10:07 pm
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| » The GSL is now available |
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The new 4th Edition Game System License is now available from WotC: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/welcome
It is exactly what I expected, a combination of the d20 license (not the OGL, they're _very_ different) and some stuff about discontinuing the publication of 3.x products.
The morality clause (section 7.0 of the GSL) of the revised d20 license is still in there and still amuses me. No historical supplements for you!
There has been much discussion over the ramifications of the License to independent publishers (notably at open_design and at the Paizo Forums )
Not that I ever really planned to, but Sabledrake Enterprises will never be publishing under this license. Doing so is only asking for trouble. We will continue to publish Naughty & Dice under the OGL and will publish future games, setting and adventures under the Ellis brand or as system generic.
Jun. 17th, 2008 @ 09:18 pm
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| » Most amazing apartment evah! |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/garden/12puzzle.html?_r=4&pagewanted=1&ref=garden&oref=slogin
The idea of mysteries hidden in the architecture is a theme that has interested me since I was a kid. This takes the idea to its modern conclusion.
Jun. 16th, 2008 @ 04:19 pm
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| » Progress on Ellis! |
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More on the weekend and the strange up-and-down day I've had today later. For the moment, here's how work on Ellis is going:
Somehow, the MS got broken up into several smaller bits:
Combat: 9022 words (1200 today)
Religion: 5211 words (0 today)
Main Text: 28664 words (400 today)
--Tim
Jun. 16th, 2008 @ 02:23 pm
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| » Squirrelman #3: Sins of the Past Vol. 2 |
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Is now being sent to the printer.
It is the best one of the three -- great story, fabulous cover, intriguing plot ....
Here's the blurb from the back cover:
"This is Action City’s darkest hour.
Dangerous criminals are on the loose. Trusts have been betrayed and lives ruined. Secret identities are exposed. A city is plunged into terror and turmoil. The deadliest threat in metahuman history is poised to return. All hell has, not quite literally, broken loose.
Who is behind these dastardly deeds? Is it Lord Hades, master of Subterra? Is it the mysterious sorceress from the future? Is it a Negaverse plot? Is it the work of some arch-villainous mastermind? Is it the Implacable Foes, or the Revolutionists? Is it the advance scouts of the Xerxian Empire?
It’s up to that grey-clad guardian of Lower Uptown, the sensational Squirrelman, to find out! He and the rest of the newly-formed Crimefighter’s League – Ragdoll, Ace, Darklight, Physique, Dragon, Blue Jay, Superia, Phenom, and Red Bolt among others – join forces with Doc Sterling, the World’s Smartest Man, to unravel this fiendish conundrum.
To prevent the perils of the future from destroying the hope of the present, they first must confront the Sins of the Past!
Which makes it a little hard to also plan a wedding."
It's been great, but I'm glad it's done. Now maybe I can work on some of my own projects.
Oh, no, wait. I forgot that this is the last week of school. Maybe not.
--Tim
Jun. 15th, 2008 @ 09:01 pm
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